Arcade God

"Soul and I have some business to take care of downtown, so we can meet in an hour in front of the hotel we're staying at. I'm sure the city will be loads of fun, so come join us too, if you want!"

It had sounded like a great notion at the time when Maka had suggested it, but now that Black Star and Tsubaki had so much time to spare before their friends showed up, things weren't looking as bright.

After all, there were only so many things you could do loitering around at a hotel parking lot.

"What are those two thinking, making someone as big as me wait for them for such a long time?!" Black Star exclaimed loudly from his vantage point on top of an expensive-looking car.

Tsubaki was sweating bullets while she was trying to cajole her willful partner to get off the polished car before the bodyguards on watch in front of the hotel, who were eyeing the young man very suspiciously, could decide to take some action against him.

Only when she succeeded in bringing down the overly energetic teen from the car, did she allow herself to remind him,

"It's not like they made us wait for them. We chose to do so on our own, didn't we?"

"Don't bother with the details, Tsubaki!" the blue-haired assassin commanded in a booming voice and his partner wondered if the bodyguards wouldn't use the "disruption of the order" trump card on them some time soon to chase them off. "The bottom line is that they are making this great me dilly-dally while waiting for small people to finish with their small duties instead of spending that time in quality training to bring me closer to surpassing the gods!"

The raven-haired chain scythe sighed heavily. If only she got a quarter for every time she heard this same line of thought…

"Yes, yes, sure," she agreed good-naturedly, leaning against the stone wall that separated the hotel's parking lot from the rest of the current region.

Black Star paced back and forth for a while, complaining loudly about something and, when he decided that he couldn't just waste his time waiting around, declared he was going off to explore the surroundings.

He hadn't gone even twenty meters before he took a turn and disappeared inside some kind of building. Alarms immediately went off in Tsubaki's head and she wondered whether he wasn't causing a ruckus and inconveniencing people again. Maybe she shouldn't have agreed so readily to let him go off on his own…

The subject of her concerns came back running to her not even a minute or so later after she'd begun really wondering what he'd been up to, a suspicious huge grin on his face.

"Tsubaki! You wouldn't believe what kind of place I found! You have to come see – we can definitely kill some time there while showing some small folk how things are done!" he exulted, grabbing his partner by the hand and dragging her off in the direction he'd sprung in not a minute or so ago. The young woman hadn't even had the time to offer a reply to his offer.

She felt an onslaught of dread at the thought of what exactly could it have been that had made Black Star go into such an overdrive after being so moody over being made to wait for a long time.

The sight of people enjoying themselves immensely while playing various games on sophisticated-looking machines was definitely not among the things she'd anticipated seeing.

Frankly, it was a pleasant surprise. The games they had there seemed relatively harmless, so she couldn't see anything wrong with them spending an hour or so in the arcade.

"This place is really awesome, isn't it? We don't have this kind of thing back home in Death City!" Black Star jubilated, both hands on his hips while he regarded the large fun-having center with appreciative eyes. "This is definitely a place worthy of someone with an existence as humongous as mine!"

Tsubaki allowed herself a small smile. Anything that made her partner as child-like happy couldn't be that bad an idea.

"Yeah! It definitely does seem like a fun place to be," she agreed, taking a closer look around. "What should we try out first?"

She had said the magic word that unlocked the flood-gates.

From there on, they probably played every game there was in the premise, with her partner acing each and everyone of them, as though to prove with one more aspect that he was definitely 'the biggest man there is'.

Tsubaki allowed him that in good humor, accepting the second place right after him without complaint.

What she failed to note with all the fun they were having was that her partner's joyous and over-enthusiastic screams and yells seemed to agitate a large group of people around the only machine they hadn't tried out. They eyed the two of them like snakes ready to strike and, when she noticed eventually, Tsubaki felt the need to escape their vicinity as quickly as possible.

"It's alright, Tsubaki, don't lose heart! It's only natural that you wouldn't be able to defeat me in any of these games – after all, I am what a God is, so naturally I excel at each and every one of them. Keep doing your best at it because that is the best course of action you can take if you want to become even half as great as I am!" the boy proclaimed again, crossing his hands behind his head while she wordlessly steered him towards the exit.

"Of course, it's only understandable that Black Star would be the best in all those games!" She laughed stiffly and wondered if he noticed, even though he didn't say anything about it. "But it's about time to go meet with Soul-kun and Maka-chan, so shouldn't we get going?"

She ushered him almost urgently towards the exit, before he could get himself into any trouble with those mean-looking people who were still glaring weirdly at them while they passed them by.

"Hey, shorty!" Tsubaki froze mid-stride when she heard a voice from the group shouting out towards them. "Hey, look at people when they talk to you, punky-looking kid with weird hair-do."

Large droplets of cold sweat broke out over the raven-haired young woman's forehead as her partner's expression turned to stone and he turned his head slowly to look at the people who had addressed him over his shoulder.

"What? You talking to me, moron?" he ground out and the guy who had obviously spoken adopted an enraged expression at his intelligence being insulted.

That's when Tsubaki knew that all hell was about to break loose and now that those people had called him short and a "punky-looking kid", there was no turning back…

"Yeah, you – the loud one who acts like he owns the place." This time it was another of the verbal assailant's cronies, stepping up to speak. "Wanna play a game with us? We promise it's going to be fun."

From the fiendish expression on his face, Tsubaki knew it would be anything but fun.

"I don't know what kind of merit you get by calling this big me short and a kid, both of which are equal to small, unless you just want to make yourselves stand out more but I don't see any point in playing any kind of game with such sad excuses for people like you guys."

While the chain scythe girl was really glad he didn't let himself get easily baited into whatever they were trying to pull, she really thought Black Star could've chosen his words in a wiser way, so as not to agitate the already short-tempered guys any further.

"Is it really that or do you just not want to look bad in front of your girlfriend when you lose spectacularly to us?" another guy from the group piped up, snickering to himself afterwards.

Tsubaki blushed a shade of bright red, hearing quite selectively what the stranger had said.

"W-w-we aren't really like that—" she tried to explain but no one seemed to pay much heed to her.

Black Star's brows narrowed dangerously over his eyes.

"Are you calling me a coward?" he grinded out, making the bullies grin in satisfaction. They had him now.

"It's what you are, isn't it?"

"Perfect—bring it on!" the azure-haired boy yelled, rolling up his already short sleeves. "There isn't a kiddy game in existence that can be too difficult for the great Black Star to conquer!"

The girl grabbed her partner by his shirt before he could get completely immersed in this stupid showdown with some mean-spirited bullies. She must have had a really pleading look in her eyes because he smiled at her and said through a grin,

"You just stand back and watch me annihilate those guys, Tsubaki! I have found yet another stage to show off my enormous existence!"

She clenched her jaw and let go of him, her worry over what kind of prank they were planning to pull on him having not diminished even slightly but she knew that trying to cajole him out of this was out of the question. They had already pushed his buttons.

Besides, this new "dancing stage" of his, seemed to have truly intrigued him.

The plan had been to bait the shrimp into a game he obviously had never seen before and shut him up by totally defeating him at it.

They had even gone as far as choosing a really difficult song and playing it on "Difficult", the second to last difficulty level, and they had left him without the settings for fewer arrows.

It should've been an instant win for them, who loved playing that song on the Dance Dance Revolution machine in this arcade and almost knew the moves by heart.

And yet the little punk had somehow, with some flailing and more obnoxious yelling and lots of quick changes in direction of the foot-work, managed to pull through the first song.

They were at a loss for words. This was unheard of, unspeakable.

Was this guy even human?

"Hey, this thing is actually really fun! I think I'm getting the hang of it, Tsubaki!" he called back loudly through the music towards his girl who was behind them, watching how things played out while wringing her hands worriedly.

It had taken only a few seconds for Tsubaki to realize that even though the song and the controls were the same for both players, Black Star's opponent seemed to have a lot less direction arrows to follow.

She knew they had had a dirty trick up their sleeve. They had definitely wanted to pick on her partner by humiliating him in a completely unknown game.

Too bad they didn't know who they were dealing with, as something of this speed—however alien of a thing it was—was nothing to Black Star who underwent rigorous training religiously every day.

Not only that, but by the end of the first game, he had mastered one of the most difficult games without the "Little" option that their guy had, and he had even minimized all of his unnecessary movements, hitting all arrows infallibly at "Perfect".

The bunch gathered together after the first game, deciding to change tack. They had their best played go and talk to the little punk and offer him a deal.

"If you win this game that we'll play under our terms, we'll agree that you're definitely the best player there is and we promise that we'll spread word about you amongst our lot. We'll admit that you're definitely way better than us and we'll leave you and your girlfriend be."

Black Star grinned toothily at that proposition and all parties involved in the silly match ignored Tsubaki who tried to explain from behind them that she and her partner didn't share that kind of relationship.

"You've finally come to realize it, huh?" he said smoothly, a complacent grin sliding in place on his face. His smug expression pissed off his opponent for the game till no end.

"But if you lose, you'll have to admit that you're inferior to us and you won't show your face in front of us ever again. Sound good?"

The over-confident youngster grinned malignantly at his provoker.

"That's fine with me. I don't care about the losing conditions to this deal. Since I'm going to smash your head in anyway."

The two guys glared evilly at one another for a bit before they stepped up on the gaming pads.

The blue-haired boy cracked his fingers, a huge grin plastered securely on his face.

"Black Star on stage!" he exclaimed, bouncing up and down on the pad.

"Just a second – you agreed you'd play by our terms, right?" Black Star's antagonist said, making the young assassin make room for him to do some weird steps before the game had even begun.

When the guy was satisfied, he went and did some options on his own pad as well, grinning suspiciously all the while, making Tsubaki even more restless and Black Star more annoyed with him taking so long with preparations.

"Are we doing this?" the Shibusen student drawled irritably, impatient to show off his superiority to these guys already.

His answer was the machine's jolly call, "Are you ready?" while the "Here we go!" writing disappeared.

It was time to see who was better…

Five minutes later, a very triumphant and slightly out of breath Black Star was laughing raucously in the incredulous faces of his opponents, who had yet to completely realize how utterly they had been defeated.

To think he could've cleared the two 300-beat songs at a double speed without any options for fewer arrows… A monster. A monster had definitely come into that arcade that night…

"I told you that I am what a God is!" the annoying squirt exulted obnoxiously, but they couldn't say anything against him, since a deal was a deal. "This is my era! There isn't a game in existence that can be too difficult for someone as big as me to figure out!" He laughed loudly with his hands on his hips, head thrown back and making a complete spectacle of himself.

They couldn't believe they had lost to such a clown so they decided to take their leave then, with their tails between their legs.

Black Star regarded their retreating backs with a huge grin. He let out a sigh of content, drawing a hand across his forehead, drying his sweaty bangs. A cold drink hovered in his line of sight then and he took the proffered beverage from his partner's hand, awarding her with one of his largest of grins.

"You knew they were trying to make a fool out of you and that they had something planned, didn't you?" she asked, taking a sip of her own light drink she'd bought from the bar.

"Yeah, I did," he managed to say before downing the entire half liter bottle in several large gulps.

"Why did you agree to play them then? Why'd you walk into their trap?"

"I wanted to see what kind of face they'd make when I beat them at their own game," he said, almost laughing, as he aimed and threw the now empty bottle, having it land perfectly in the waste basket by the exit. "They tried to make themselves stand out more than me, so I couldn't let it slide."

Tsubaki smiled to herself and took another tentative sip of her beverage. This was definitely just like Black Star.

"Besides, I found out a really fun game thanks to them! Now I know all the options so we can make for an exciting match between us on this dancing emulator."

The girl blinked a couple of times at her meister, slightly befuddled. So he'd taken on a bunch of mean guys who badmouthed him and demeaned him, just so he could get to learn the specifics of a game so they could explore it better together? Something so pointless was such a trademark of his…

She smiled to herself and downed her drink as well, throwing it with the same precision as him in the trash can.

"Alright then! Let's play together!" she called out, clenching a fist before herself. Seeing her fighting spirit, Black Star's own blazed back into tangibility as well.

"Right!"

"This time, I am definitely going to be the winner!" the girl threatened, getting up on the pad.

Her technician's booming laugh echoed over the loud music from the huge speakers.

"I'll take you up on that challenge, Tsubaki!" He hit his palm with his other hand, clenched in a fist. "I know! Whoever loses this one will do the dishes for the next two weeks when we get home and won't complain!"

"You're the only one who ever complains about chores and runs away from doing them, Black Star," Tsubaki reminded him jokingly while he chose a song.

He laughed some more and then the game was on.

Maka and Soul entered the arcade hurriedly an hour and a half or so later, looking around frantically for their friends.

Their business downtown had taken them more time than they had anticipated and, knowing their loud buddy rather well, had been worried about what kind of apocalypse may have befallen the city for making him wait more than they had promised to take.

The two had arrived in the promised meeting place only to find their friends nowhere in sight. They waited around for a bit then thought to ask the bodyguards in front of the hotel whether they had seen an incredibly annoying kid with spiky hair and a timid young woman with him somewhere.

And the Shibusen student pair had been directed to the arcade where a huge group of onlookers had gathered around a place where loud music was coming from.

Soul and Maka shared a puzzled look between them as they advanced, wondering what the ruckus was about and hoping to ask someone from the crowd whether they haven't seen their friends.

Instead, they found the subjects of their search on the game, in the center of attention, out of breath and drenched in sweat, moving almost faster than the eye could grasp to some insanely quick rhythm that was blaring from the huge speakers.

The crowd of people had gathered to see the most amazing pair of players bring the game to whole new heights with their incredible reflexes and quick movements. It was truly a marvel to behold, watching their endless showdowns.

At the end of the day, Tsubaki was stuck with doing dishes, laundry, cooking and cleaning all by herself for a whole month because she'd lost more times than could be counted, and only managed very few to bring their showdowns to a draw.

But she didn't mind. After all, it was only natural that she'd take her place right behind him, at his shadow, his prop to success, as he was truly going to one day surpass the deities if he said he would because he always kept all his promises.

Besides, doing chores for a month was definitely worth getting him to work up a good sweat with her.

A/N: This came to me when me and my friends were at the arcade the other day. So, even if it's a bit pointless, I just had to write it up. I hope it wasn't a disappointment, because I really enjoyed writing it for some reason, even though the main thought of it is a bit lost to me. Then again, what's the point of games in the first place if not just having fun because it is fun? xDD And I just had to write something that amplified Black Star's greatness some.